The impacts of port truck traffic’s temporal patterns on emissions

Abstract

This paper quantifies the emissions impacts of changes in temporal patterns of truck traffic arriving at a major marine port. Using proprietary computational tools to process GPS data from over 50,000 freight vehicles operating in the New York City metropolitan area, we estimate fuel consumption, emissions, and generalized transportation costs for different scenarios of temporal patterns. The results show that changes in arrival times can significantly reduce emissions. For instance, operating the port 24/7 could cut CO₂ emissions by 19 %, while a more modest three-hour shift in port hours could achieve a 7.5 % reduction. The results also show a reduction in transportation costs. These findings provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of freight demand management initiatives that induce changes in the temporal patterns of truck traffic at freight facilities.